The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 29 – Are audiobooks worth it?

Should you create an audiobook version of your novel? Are audiobooks worth it?

If you do go ahead and get an audiobook created, despite the production costs involved, how do you then market the audiobook? And what about how to publish and distribute it?

All your questions will be answered in this episode.

The resources we mentioned were:

ACX (Amazon audio production available for US citizens only): https://www.acx.com/ 
FindAwayVoices (available Internationally): https://findawayvoices.com/ 
Draft2Digital: https://draft2digital.com/ 

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Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (0s):
Have you ever wondered whether or not you should produce some audio books for your novels and is it even worth it? And how do you market audiobooks?

Intro (13s):
And

Autumn (16s):
if you're a fantasy author that you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and together with Jesper we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you with your writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world.

Jesper (30s):
So in about one and a one and a half month time, we are going to open our writing costs for fantasy authors for the first time in six months. And we've sort of been waiting for the right time to give away an awesome price and it just happens so that actually tomorrow we have one year anniversary on Patrion. And because of that we thought we wanted to celebrate that anniversary and give some stuff.

Autumn (1m 5s):
I was so excited because Patrick has been a great place and great opportunities where we can provide even more personal touch and tips. I mean, we love doing these free videos and the podcasts. We love reaching authors and helping authors so they don't have quite the same stumbling blocks and experiences that, um, we ended up having some times that always for the best. So we can give you some of the tips and the things we've learned over time. We love doing that on YouTube and the podcast, but in Patreo and we can do even more, we can reach more people with the personal tips and more in depth focus tips.

Autumn (1m 45s):
And it's been a great experience and I cannot believe it's been a whole year.

Jesper (1m 50s):
It's amazing, isn't it? How time flies when you're having fun? No, we're just really, really busy. Yeah. But basically what we decided to do with, and here's how it's gonna work. So tomorrow, the 16th of July, and that's 2019 if you ever watched and listened to this, uh, but tomorrow the 16th of July until the end of July until the 31st of July, 2019 we have a two week window and during that two week window, we're going to give some stuff away, eh, unique to those who either subscribe as a new subscriber on Petro on.

Jesper (2m 30s):
And you can do that as a little as a dollar a month or two, some existing patron subscribers who upped their pledge to the next year. So either one of the to we'll get some additional prices on top of the normal rewards that you do get anyway once you sign up for on patron. And one of them is uh, my audio book version on how to write offenses. You book description, which every fantasy author needs to write anyway, so you can get a free audio book version of that, uh, as soon as you have signed up or upgraded your tier.

Jesper (3m 10s):
Uh, on top of that, because we are releasing the ultimate fantasy writer's guide, our premium writing costs for fantasy authors in the end of August, we are also going to put the name, your name in the pot for a draw. And we're going to draw one lucky winner between everybody who signs up in this two week window until the 31st of July. And also between all the people who operate the Tia who's already on patron and we're going to draw one name at random and that person will win the premium ultimate fetish of riders guide course for free.

Autumn (3m 45s):
I'm so excited about that. Uh, we'd like to give away or how offer scholarships occasionally. So having a chance to have a new student and to do that for free and as a reward to our pantry Rollins, I think it's a fantastic opportunity. And what a fantastic way to celebrate our one year anniversary on Patreon.

Jesper (4m 5s):
Yes, exactly. I'm also looking very much forward to it and uh, go check it out. There is a link in the, if you're on YouTube and just the description field below this video, you will find the link to patron. But if you are listening on podcast then just go into the show notes and also there you'll find a link to patron. So just go over there and check it out. But remember it's only this two week window and after that we are back to normal. So get on there. So it starts tomorrow

Autumn (4m 34s):
on Tuesday and just goes to the end of the month and 2019 so check it out while you can and shine in.

Jesper (4m 43s):
Great. Okay. That was a bit of anniversary speech there. So we hope to see you there. But uh, let's get into a bit of an audio book conversation autumn because I think all your books is a really, really good topic to discuss because the audio book market is absolutely booming. Uh, it's crazy the growth rates that we see in the audio book market, uh, yet at the same time, out of all the books that you can find online or the eBooks, it's probably like a few percentage of the total who actually has audio progressions available.

Jesper (5m 21s):
It's very, very rare and that is of cost because right now and the time and age we're in both the production costs for an audiobook, but also the time that goes into it is working a bit against us. But we wanted to share our thoughts here today on, well, should you, should you create an audio book for your novels or not? And if you should then how do you market those audiobooks and also what are your distribution possibilities, you know, how do you release it or publish into the world?

Jesper (5m 58s):
So, but maybe we should start about the uh, the part on should we actually create audiobooks.

Autumn (6m 5s):
Sure. That's a good one. I, cause I've been in audio and doing audio books and I can't remember when I started if it was 2014, 2015, but it's been a few years now. So I've done that. I've had a pro file, I have all of my Epic fantasy trilogies, both of them. So six books in audio and I'm working on my dystopian one and I've been giving away advice to a lot of authors thinking of trying out audio books. So I think this is a great and important topic because you're right, as far as percentage wise, you know, I, I would, I started E publishing in 2012.

Autumn (6m 40s):
There were like virtually, there was less than a million eBooks on Amazon. So this is like the reset for doing that again. But now it's audio books where it's a small market where you have a much better chance of having your books noticed, seen and heard. But again, this is more than just, you know, making sure you are editing, um, and controlling those aspects. You still have a whole new realm of things you need to be on top of and take care of so that you're producing a quality audio books so that what your knee known for your name gets known for is a wonderful story in a greatly produced audio book and not something that people are going hearing.

Autumn (7m 21s):
This person's voice is like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard and I can't stand this author. That's not what you want to have happen. So this is a whole new realm and it taught me a very important lesson when creating fantasy and character's name is make sure you know how to pronounce them and that you can tell other people how to do that. It's totally changed my perspective on what I needed my characters now.

Jesper (7m 43s):
Yeah. That, that is absolutely true. Uh, but, and I think probably most people can relate to this, but we live in a world nowadays where everybody is very, very busy and because of that, people are also in general, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people are trying to optimize how they spent their time. Meaning that if you could stop doing multiple things at once, like that's in part also why I personally love listening to podcast. I counted them last week and I'm currently listening to 51 different podcasts shows.

Jesper (8m 17s):
So it's a lot. Um, but the nice thing is about, it doesn't really take up like extra time because I do it when I go grocery shopping or if I'm cooking dinner or something, they're not just having my earplugs in and I'm listening to it while I'm doing something else. And I think where we are today in here in 2019 with people being so vicious, they are, I think in part that's also why we received seeing audiobooks rooming because people can do it, they can basically listen to a book while they're doing something else.

Jesper (8m 48s):
Um, and that is a market that you can tap into by creating audio books.

Autumn (8m 54s):
Definitely. And now we was interesting

Jesper (8m 56s):
as I, there's a few platforms out there, so you and I have actually used totally different ways of doing this. I've been on ACX since I started, but ACX is related to Amazon. It's owned by Amazon also. It's what it produces it you buy the books on audible as well as Amazon. So that's where I've been. But it's not um, open to anyone who doesn't look white. It States which has a huge limiting factor. But you found a place that you have been using that um, you don't have to be a U S citizen, which is kinda nice.

Jesper (9m 29s):
Yeah, exactly. Uh, so I've used find a way voices, um, which is, I've been very happy with it. It's a very good service. You upload your, sort of upload some, some information about what it is, the book that you want them to Janae narrate and then they, and you also say something about what type of narration you would like to know. Should should the person sound professional or funny or serious or calm or whatever. Uh, so you, you, you sort of give them some hints and some guidelines and then they will go out and then are their library of narrator to stay.

Jesper (10m 5s):
We'll find three of them that they think matches what you're looking for. And then those three we'll do a free sample for you, which you can listen to. And if you don't like any of them, you just say to find a way, voices, I don't like them. And then they'll give pre new once and they will continue doing so until you're happy with it. And once you're happy in your selected it, then the duration starts and then you go sort of go through the process and then Nereda uploads them to find a way, voices, platforms where you can communicate whenever he was saying you need to change this and that, and then he will, we recorded or she will rerecord it.

Jesper (10m 37s):
And once you've approved each of the sections, just press approve. And in the end, then you have a final audiobook and then find a way voices takes care of it and they distribute it to all. There's like one in a hundred different distributors that they also audible that they distribute to. Uh, so it's, it's very, very easy and uh, it's, it's, it's a perfect opportunity in my view because also there is no exclusive activity with it. Like if you go to ACX with Amazon, they lock you in, um, as usual Amazon style.

Jesper (11m 11s):
So find a way why system good at and you're free to do whatever you want and you set your own prices for the book as well, which is really nice. You can't do that on ACX as well. If I understand correctly, once you've sort of gone, gone through all that and uh, well you, you, you have your audio book released and uh, it's, it's pretty simple actually. If you go in through the draft to digital, if you use that drafted digital as your distributor and if you have your ebook on there and you us inside the drafted digital dashboard, if you click create audio book in from in there, then drafted digital has a agreement with findawayvoices that any customer who comes them find a way voices, we'll waive the $50 administration fee that they normally chance when you upload a new project.

Jesper (12m 1s):
So you can upload a unit project and you're paid nothing. So it's awesome. So if you're also using breath to digital, just go through that platform rather than creating an account separately on findawayvoices and upload your book there because then they got a chat, your $50 to sort of handle your new project and find the samples and all of that. But you can save that money by just going through draft or did digital to that's, that's so cool.

Autumn (12m 28s):
You pretty much convinced me. I wish I had tried it, but I don't think anyone existed when I started. I mean, ACX is also incredibly user-friendly. And if you're only on Amazon, it's definitely the way to go because you log in and you actually pull your book in from Amazon through your AEs IBN number. So you pull it in, it links automatically. So when the book is done, it's automatically distributed. The sound clip is right there. So unlike findawayvoices, you don't have anyone setting anyone for you.

Autumn (12m 59s):
You post up a sample, you give them a script that you want people to read and you could just sit there and let it be and people will come and find you and read your script. But you can also go and look for narrators and say, Hey, I just have this open for auditions where you come and audition for it. So it's a very active, you have to go hunt for people. People come and find you, and it can be a lot of fun. So you can end up with 1520 I mean, you can keep it open as long as you want. And so you find the narrator you're looking for and then work out a contract. And there's a couple of different levels you can pay someone outright.

Autumn (13m 32s):
If you have a book that is selling incredibly well on Amazon, they will actually pay a percentage of the fee to the narrator. So you can get that kind of a deal if you have a really good bestselling novel. And there's also something where it's royalty share what's 50 50 of all the process proceeds. And obviously the, that's more for newer narrators, but the high end ones, they usually want a fee that's can be upwards of $300 per finished hour, uh, which is not good. It takes 10 about 10 hours to make one per finished hour video.

Autumn (14m 3s):
So you can kind of figure out how much they're actually getting per hour is not that much. So it's up to you to choose what UAA you've got. You want to go. It's awesome. If you have a book in a series and you have the money, you can hire someone for the entire series. That's what I'm having with my dystopian books. But at the same time on my Epic fantasy, I was a new author at the beginning and so I actually have a different narrator for every single one and it works, but it's also jarring. Not everyone pronounces the same names the same way. Some people prefer the one narrator over another.

Autumn (14m 34s):
So there's a lot of discontinuation. Um, honestly the best way to go is to save the money and be able to pay the narrator upfront. Then you own 100% of the royalties and that is fantastic. But you know, it works both ways. If you want to get your feet wet, it's definitely for you to find a fantastic narrator by going with the 50, 50 royalty share deal and giving it a try and seeing how it goes because it is a fantastic market to jump into. However, saying that, um, if people think is it is the way to become the quick rich, you'll get rich quick book selling way.

Autumn (15m 11s):
I can say after three, four years in this game, I'm working with a few other narrators and people who are doing audio books, other authors, you know, it's great. It's great to be finable, but I'm not seeing it as the most major boost in my sales I've ever done. I think it makes much more sense to focus on writing and making sure you have an entire series written than it does to get your first audio book out. So if I had to choose between writing and getting my audio book released, I would write first. But I definitely love it having it on that platform as well.

Jesper (15m 43s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course, as you said a, it makes a lot of sense to make sure that you can get the same narrator to to do a whole series so that it doesn't, it's not a new voice reading next book in the series, so that certainly makes sense. Of course the downside would findawayvoices is that you don't have this ride split opportunity, at least not now. Maybe it comes later. I don't know what their plans are, but right now the only way to do it is that you have to pay, uh, their narrator for the recording. Um, they go for anything.

Jesper (16m 15s):
I think the lowest, I've seen this $150 per hour, but then they go upwards and easily $500 power. I think the one when I got to narrate the, uh, how Taran right offenses, she put descriptive your book, I think I paid $250 an hour for him. Uh, and he does a very good job and so they, the pricing ranges, but at the end of the day, it's not cheap. And of course, if you have a full, 100,000 word long fantasy novel, it's going to cost you quite some money.

Jesper (16m 48s):
Uh, and that, that is really the downside with the audio books is that where we are right now where you have to do it like this manual approps and buy them. I buy that. I mean, I'm pretty sure that in if in a couple of years, if we had to have this conversation in a couple of years, I'm pretty sure we're going to see AI being able to S to narrate books just as well as human beings as Kevin. I'm pretty sure that we'll see that in a couple of years' time. And when we get to that space, yay, I can probably never read that book in no time and the cost will be a lot lower, uh, to do so.

Jesper (17m 23s):
But, but we're not there yet. So that just means that not right now the only way is to go with the human way, meaning that you have to pay a human being to sit there and read everything and record everything and be this extensive and it's not a, as autumn said, it's not a get rich quick dark sort of thing. But, and I will also agree, I think with what you said them that if if it's just your first books, I wouldn't rush into start getting an audio book. But I mean for, for my first trilogy am I don't have audiobooks for those either.

Jesper (17m 57s):
And I have, I don't have any plans to do that either at the, at this point in time. But I would say that sort of, if you, if you have the money to spend on it, I think it is extremely good to get the audio books out there, both because the market is booming and one more people are listening to all your books. That's one thing. And we are far from it as stage where everybody in the world who will get access to audiobooks are there yet. So that will only be a lot more people coming on board in the coming years who will start getting access to all your book, uh, platforms that are not there today.

Jesper (18m 31s):
So there's a lot of new customers out there, so to speak. You don't have a handle on today where the audio book will help you a lot in, in getting there. But that, that's, that's sort of the one side of it. And then the other side of it is that having the bootable different formats of a book. So you have a, um, an ebook, you'll have a paperback. Uh, maybe you have a hard copy if that's something, but, but at least you have an ebook. They have a paperback. Both of those of course you could get through Amazon, but then you also have an audio book that just the fact that you have at least those three formats also shows a certain level of seriousness and professionalism with your book that when somebody goes to your book page on, on Amazon, for example, in the, okay, there's all these different formats there, it kind of gives the impression S and also show that this is a serious author who actually means business when one is being created here and it's not just, uh, created a, a cheap ebook and there you go.

Jesper (19m 32s):
You know, so, so I think that there is some certain level of branding and professionalism in this that you cannot neglect completely either.

Autumn (19m 41s):
No, I agree. I think it definitely works as your plot form. If you're a serious author, you want a very strong platform. Audio books are the way to go. I will definitely say, uh, if you, when you hire a narrator, you're going to want to have a list of pronunciation guides of names, place names, characters. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a little bit of a feel. I remember one of my auditions and one of my very sensitive characters, I having to be an action scene. I always say, if you're going to pick a scene for an audition, pick one of the most challenging scenes in your novels.

Autumn (20m 14s):
And that way, you know, if they pull that one off, they're going to pull off the rest of it. And so I had this scene that was very challenging and very, you know, action oriented and they narrated the one very sensitive male character. Like he was a hockey jock. And I like know we talked and he redid it so that I could really get a better feel for him and his voice. So it doesn't hurt to have a few tips like that. You're gonna want to hand that off to your narrator. It's very important to that they get the words right and really treat them like you would, you know, your graphic artists, anyone you work with, your editor.

Autumn (20m 46s):
This is a very professional, I've become really good friends with the narrator for my dystopian series cause we've been together for years and I've watched his am career blossom as an actor. Actually. I'm hoping now at this point my book will be famous just because of who he's going to be. And um, the things you learn, you know, he has to not eat dairy the day he's going to narrate cause it makes mouth sounds. I mean he is, you have to have a soundproof studio. This is when they say the, you know, 300 to $500 per finished hour knowing that every per finished hour is 10 to 12 hours of audio and takes.

Autumn (21m 24s):
And I don't think I could have the patients to do this. I appreciate the professionalism that a truly good narrator has. So you know, if you're going to go get into this, take the time to listen to a few audio books that are really well done and get a feel for it because you want to know, you know, the sound, the static noise, all that white noise, it all adds up and want a quality finished product. So make sure you're getting that, especially if you're going to be paying for it directly and have, you know, the a hundred percent royalties.

Autumn (21m 57s):
But even if you're doing a 50, 50 split, you should have a standard that you expect and make sure you listen to it so that there's anything that's incorrect. They get pronouns wrong or names wrong. Um, I had someone try to change an entire scene by accident. Make sure that doesn't happen so you can get that fixed and corrected. Now the biggest aspects with audio books too is how you end up marketing. So just because you haven't, it not 100%, you know, it shows up on Amazon, which was fantastic.

Autumn (22m 27s):
But you do have to let people know. And there's a few ways. There is a place called audio book. Boom that does do marketing with ACX. You get 25 free codes. But I know, yes were, you seem to be got, have a lot more than 25 and there's a few places out there where you can look for our reviewers. You can do swaps that they get a free code if they're going to guarantee you 100% that they will review your book for you. And those are all great ways of getting noticed and having people, you know, see that you have an audio book, which is fantastic.

Autumn (22m 57s):
Plus it gets you into more abuse on Amazon, all your profiles, your paperback or audio book and your ebook all connects. So that all those reviews, uh, covid reference, which is good. It's also frustrating if someone doesn't like your narrator. It gives you a one star review and totally ripped a new one. And that shows up on your ebook, which has nothing to do with, cause I have had people say I hate this narrator of their voices, like chalk on a, you know, fingernails on a chalkboard. Uh, couldn't stand it, but the store is really good and you're like, Oh, so just warn you.

Autumn (23m 30s):
Yes, your name is going to be forever linked with whoever you choose to narrate it. And if people don't like the voice of the narrator, you're going to hear about it. Yeah. I think when it comes to marketing of the audio book says it's a bit difficult.

Jesper (23m 47s):
I mean you do get these giveaway coats that uh, that you also just mentioned autumn which is across nice. And then you can give away some audio books and hopefully make people interested in, for example, if it's, if you have a series of books and you can give some audio, a free coats away for the first one and then hopefully they will go on and buy the other ones. So that is of course good, but it is a bit more difficult in a way that you don't necessarily have quite the same tools available to you as you do with the eBooks for example, or the paperback back.

Jesper (24m 19s):
Certainly on on the Amazon ads you cannot charge at the audio books specifically with the Amazon app, you could target the ebook and you're contacting people back, but not the audiobook. But of course their line of thinking is then if you run the ads to the eBooks and to the paperbacks and those who actually prefer audio books, they will just pick up the audio. But when they arrive on your book page. So that's sort of the the line of thinking behind but it, but it is a bit different to some extent. At least I view would maybe, maybe some, some has more experienced with this than me and and can correct me and maybe even autumn I don't know, but, but at least in my view, these audio books, sales are more something you're sort of pickup up in the wake of the other book selling.

Jesper (25m 0s):
So you, you just sell some audio books. Because the other, because you're pushing traffic to the other books and this, that's how I view it. Of course. The other alternative is that we find a way washes. You're also distributing to libraries in the U S desists though. So you can try to let your readers know who, why the U S that, Oh by the way, do you know that you can actually get my audio book for free if you go to library and they, eh, they use these special apps that findawayvoices us as well with libraries has access to, but all those details are inside the findawayvoices dashboard.

Jesper (25m 36s):
So you'll get all of that when, when you start working with, we'd find a way voices, but you can't tell Rita. So you know, go to your library, asked them if they use this and then you can basically, you don't even have to leave your home, you know the, the readers can download it via their portal to the library from home and you will get paid as soon as they do. So because the library then pays for a pro listen base. So basically the, the sort of lent the audio book to the, to the customer, in this case, the Rita, and then you get paid for that by uh, findawayvoices.

Jesper (26m 9s):
So, so it works and you get paid. And that's of course nice that that's another way you can try to market the book and actually market the fact that they can listen to it for free, which most people will like. So, um, yeah. But other than that, I, I, I do view it as the marketing side of audiobooks is a bit difficult. So you just started to pick up the sales to cam from marketing the eBooks and the paperback books. But I don't know if you have any other thoughts on that order, but that's sort of how I see it.

Jesper (26m 40s):
I think that's a primary way is definitely if your book is selling well

Autumn (26m 44s):
in other ways that you're, you know, you have an ebook am so you do a, you know, a sale on it or you have a freebie, people will see that it's an audio book and you'll get some sales that way, which is fantastic. It is also, I always look at it, it's another way of doing posts. So if you do post to your social media account, you know, letting people know every once in a while having, Oh yeah. By the way, do you know this is on audio? I know for a while I was taking clips and putting them, sometimes I'd make them to YouTube clips or I would just do the audio clip or I do it as a blog post and so it's fantastic.

Autumn (27m 17s):
Do you have this other medium? So I'm going to, you know, I'll post more on it and share off clips because I can access all of those files that are on my audio book and it clips and do am beams and do all these other posts. And so that has always, you know, kind of more interesting. I use it for videos. I use Adobe spark, which allows you to make some really cool high-end videos. I can put in some sound there. I have this plan in this script to make this trailer and actually paid my one narrator that do a few other quotes and stuff so that I can make a trailer.

Autumn (27m 50s):
So I have all that that I'm pulling in from the audio book that'll really, it's maybe stunning if I ever sit down and sit still in one place long enough to actually pull all the files together that are just in random pieces at the moment. And of course there's giveaways. So you know, if you do paperback giveaway is ebook giveaways. You can do audio book giveaways, whether you're using a viral share platform like King Sumo or Rafflecopter. But it is again, another way that if you have free codes or if you, you know, once you finish your 25 free throws on ACX, you can ask them very politely to see if they'll give you a few more, which usually they'll at least give you five more.

Autumn (28m 26s):
So it's always helpful to keep that in mind and you'll have more codes and you can, uh, give them out in. The nice thing is with those free codes, even with ACX, you actually get paid for them. It's a slightly lower rate and ACX also does distribute to libraries and a few other just, they call it expanded distribution. So all of that is available there. And like I said, there's really no reason to not give it a try. I have right now I have two novellas out that are a new series at the moment. I have no plans on making them into audio books, but I also liked that it's a novella.

Autumn (28m 59s):
You know they're one 35,000 words. One's 45,000 words does is a great, get your feet wet with audio book life. So if you have even a short story, all of those, think outside the box. If you just want to try it out and it's for sale on Amazon, go for it. See what you can figure out and see how you like it and learn the ropes because still better way about learning how to work with audio books and then how to market audio books. Then to actually go get an audio book made and what to say if you're starting out, don't worry about rushing into creating all your books.

Autumn (29m 38s):
It is cool to have on your books. I certainly think so, but, but it is expensive. So

Jesper (29m 42s):
uh, maybe wait a bit and uh, if you could start seeing that you, your series a are sailing, if you start seeing that your eBooks and paperbacks it sailing and then it, it's definitely worth, worth considering. Stop getting some audiobook screener if you can afford it or if you want to spend the money on it. There is a, a lot of things we can spend money on, so maybe it's not at the top of your list. Like it like that. That is actually the case for me with, with my first trilogy that it's sort of not just not the top of the list of things I want to just spend money on.

Jesper (30m 16s):
So I have not done it. Maybe I'll do it one day, I don't know. But, but for now I have a lot of other things I would rather spend time and money on. So, uh, that's up to you. But, uh, yeah, I think the main thing is to take away is that just because you spent the money in creating an audio book, if the book is not selling already, it's not going to stop selling just because you have an audio book. So you can save the money if that's the case and because it's quite expensive trip. So, so there's no need to, to think that this is the magic bullet.

Autumn (30m 47s):
No, I concur. I mean, I know when I first saw the uh, idea that my trilogy at over a hundred thousand words each and you add that into your hours that it was going to be over $10,000 to $12,000 to produce, I can guarantee you am I'm not making that back in audio book sales anytime in the near future. It's fantastic to have them. But again, I agree with Yesware that this is not where you want to put all your coin. I would say start put that money into marketing your current folks and put the audio book cloth once you see them selling.

Autumn (31m 20s):
Cause it's not really the other way around. I haven't seen an audio book becomes so huge that the ebook sales lift, it's usually the ebook sales come first and then the audio book. But it is definitely fun. It gives you a few more things. And you know, worst case scenario, you want to have some clips of someone reading your book. Um, you can read your book. So don't be shy. Get front of the camera and you can always use that for marketing purposes. To

Jesper (31m 47s):
yeah, true. I would say though, a sort of a, a bit of a wanting to finish off with here, but the don't try to narrate your own audio books unless you're a bit good edit, you know, because it really does take skill and there's a reason why they charging several hundred dollars an hour because one is a lot of work, but it also requires skill to do it. So really it sounds properly and it sounds good. Um, and people have it, you, you know, they have them now right out in the box, right inside the or.

Jesper (32m 17s):
So it has to sound, we will. Uh, so I would definitely never tried to,

Autumn (32m 25s):
no, I concur. I only mean that for like a little posts on Instagram, but to do a full length book, get a professional it, once you hear a professional narrate a page of your book, you will fall in love. And you also probably realize how many times you seen Eustace didn't say a word on the same page and kick yourself, but it is. Um, I, I didn't even like audio books honestly until I heard my first book narrated and I thought, Oh my gosh, this is so cool.

Autumn (32m 56s):
So it's definitely fun, but you don't have to race into it. The market will still be there in a few years, so concentrated on getting your ebook selling. Okay, cool. I guess we'll just say thank you for watching and listening. If you want to podcast and see you next Monday. Yes. See you next Monday. But don't forget tomorrow is Tuesday. Go to Patreon and possibly win a spot in the ultimate fantasy writer's guide course and get some other freebies for joining or upgrading. See you there.

Autumn (33m 27s):
Bye. Bye. Bye.